Monday 8 October 2007 05.53 EDT
First published on Monday 8 October 2007 05.53 EDT

Mitt Romney, the millionaire spending his own fortune to be America's first Mormon president, was charming the elderly women in the diner when a large man in a bright orange hunter's cap came into view. "The ducks aren't migrating and it's 80 degrees today," bellowed Eric Orff. "What are you going to do about global warming?"

For Mr Romney - a Republican who has had to defend his religion, his credentials as a social conservative and his generosity to his own campaign, all while trying to distance himself from an unpopular Bush White House - explaining how he would save the planet was relatively straightforward. But convincing voters in New Hampshire that he would be a better standard bearer than the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Rudy Giuliani, is the tougher sell.

Mr Romney has donated $17.5m (£8.5m) of his own funds to his campaign, or about 28% of the $62m raised so far to sprint to an early lead in Iowa and New Hampshire, which is to hold the first primary in the 2008 election season. Last week, polls in the two states showed Mr Giuliani closing the gap - despite 462 campaign events and $10m in advertising by Mr Romney.

Mr Romney is unapologetic about using his own funds. "I have gone from being a single-digit candidate in these states to being the leader or tied to the leader," he told the Guardian. "You top that."

Mr Romney, 60, the son of a former governor of Michigan, looks like he should be in the White House. He has the coiffed hair and the starched blindingly white shirt of a movie president, and he is a polished campaigner. On the campaign trail, he is funny - though always within the bounds of decorum - and courteous. He even thanked an anti-war protester for his question.

Unlike his main rivals for the Republican leadership who are on their second - or in Mr Giuliani's case, third - wives, Mr Romney's family life seems impossibly wholesome. He and his wife, Ann, have been together since their first date - which was to see The Sound of Music - and have brought up five sons, who are all now married themselves. About 100 of his relatives campaigned for him in Iowa last summer.

He made his $250m fortune as a "turnaround" artist for venture firm Bain Capital, buying up ailing companies. His most successful turnaround, however, was his rescue of the Olympics in the Mormon home state of Utah, which propelled Mr Romney to his first election victory as governor of Massachusetts in 2002.

Mr Romney regularly highlights the brevity of his time in politics, hoping to insulate himself from Republican anger at the Bush White House. His two-track strategy aims to win back economic conservatives who are angry at the White House for racking up record deficits, as well as appeal to social conservatives suspicious of Mr Giuliani because of his multiple marriages and support for abortion rights.

"Republicans are concerned that our party lost its way when we were in the lead in Washington," Mr Romney said. In the past few days, he has been hitting Mr Giuliani hard on fiscal policy, accusing the former New York mayor of being a big city spender who opposes tax cuts.

Policies

The call for Republicans to get back to their roots goes only as far as curbing government spending on social programmes. On the Bush administration's conduct of the war in Iraq and against al-Qaida, Mr Romney offers little criticism, unlike other Republicans.

His view of the world seems dominated by what he calls the "global jihad". "It is important to keep Guantánamo," he said. "That is a matter of military reality which is if you are in a conflict and you are going to take prisoners of war or enemy combatants, where do you put them?"

But weighty matters of the war on terror and fiscal policy are the least of Mr Romney's worries as he tries to win over voters in New Hampshire and Iowa. It's his personal beliefs that are in doubt: both his religion and his newly minted conservative views.

Americans are almost as uncertain about the beliefs and rituals of Mormonism as they are about Islam, according to a survey last month by the Pew Centre for the People and the Press, an independent Washington thinktank. What they do know of Mormonism may not help Mr Romney's chances.

Overall, more than a quarter of Americans hold negative views of Mormons, associating the community with cults and polygamy, despite the practice being prohibited a century ago. More than half of white evangelical churchgoers, the community that is a mainstay of the Republican party, do not believe Mormons are Christian. However, nearly three-quarters believe that Mormons have strong families.

Conservative columnists have appealed to Mr Romney to make a defining speech about his religion, taking the cue from John F Kennedy more than 40 years ago with his pledge to keep church and state separate. His campaign staff say that time may come. In the meantime, Mr Romney has been working hard to win over evangelicals on "family issues", such as opposition to abortion rights and same sex marriage.

The Romney campaign is clearly hoping that his squeaky clean image, and his constant appeals to the importance of "family" - Republican codeword for opposing abortion, cutting welfare for single mothers, and banning same-sex marriage - will overcome doubts about his religion among evangelical voters.

"I believe that same-sex marriage is a major issue for this country and will be a major issue in the campaign," he said. "I do believe that this issue of same-sex marriage is important and the need to encourage traditional marriage is something which is important to the ultimate strength of a nation's culture."

But it's a tricky conversion for Mr Romney who as a candidate for a failed Senate race in 1994 and for the governorship in 2002 cast himself as a moderate on social issues, supporting legal abortion, gay rights and gun control.

Now it appears gay Republicans, who once saw Mr Romney as an ally, want revenge. Last week, they aired their own tongue-in-cheek ad in New Hampshire purporting to praise his record. "For years he's fought conservatives and religious extremists," the announcer declares, concluding "a record of fighting the religious right. A pro-choice record. Massachusetts values. Mitt Romney." But those aren't the values Mr Romney wants to advertise just now.